Camille Paglia Quotes

In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.

Camille Paglia

Woman is the dominant sex. Men have to do all sorts of stuff to prove that they are worthy of woman's attention.

Camille Paglia

Women are in league with each other, a secret conspiracy of hearts and pheromones.

Camille Paglia

Every man must define his identity against his mother. If he does not, he just falls back into her and is swallowed up.

Camille Paglia

Teenage boys, goaded by their surging hormones run in packs like the primal horde. They have only a brief season of exhilarating liberty between control by their mothers and control by their wives.

Camille Paglia

Beauty is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature

Camille Paglia

The 1990s, after the reign of terror of academic vandalism, will be a decade of restoration: restoration of meaning, value, beauty, pleasure, and emotion to art and restoration of art to its audience.

Camille Paglia

Our presence in Afghanistan is not worth the price of any more American lives or treasure.

Camille Paglia

Pursuit and seduction are the essence of SEXuality. It's part of the sizzle.

Camille Paglia

A woman simply is, but a man must become. Masculinity is risky and elusive. It is achieved by a revolt from woman, and it is confirmed only by other men.... Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.

Camille Paglia

Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality. It's part of the sizzle.

Camille Paglia

Feminism has become a catch-all vegetable drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their moldy neuroses.

Camille Paglia

When it defines man as the enemy, feminism is alienating women from their own bodies.

Camille Paglia

We need a new kind of feminism, one that stresses personal responsibility and is open to art and sex in all their dark, unconsoling mysteries.

Camille Paglia

Despite crime's omnipresence, things work in society, because biology compels it. Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium.